1. Field
The disclosed embodiments are related to the field of airplane flying. More particularly, the disclosed embodiments relate to a device making it possible to manage the rest period of a pilot, so as to improve the quality of his or her rest period and his or her aptitude to an increased vigilance during the active phases of the flight.
2. Brief Description of Related Developments
Aboard airplanes, and more particularly civil air transport short, medium or long-haul planes, crews are composed of at least two pilots: one captain and one co-pilot. Aboard an airplane, the captain is always responsible for the flight and for the airplane and consequently he or she is the only one authorised to make certain decisions.
Generally, the captain, for fear that the co-pilot might fall asleep or would not wake him/her up, cannot rest even in case of serious fatigue.
During flights, and more particularly during medium or long-haul flights, the captain accumulates an important lack of sleep and the level of his or her fatigue may be very high, in particular because of work schedules which are often shifted with respect to biological rhythm, and very important work load during landings and take-offs. A state of high fatigue is liable to cause phases of drowsiness and hypo-vigilance, which result in a reduction of performance and unconscious phases of micro-sleep. Micro-sleep phases can be detected in pilots during a flight, using a hypo-vigilance monitoring device, even during a critical phase such as the approach.
The phases of somnolence are attenuated thanks to speech communication or to motor activities or to a mental task. On the contrary, they are more frequent with crews composed of only two pilots, generally during the cruising phases which require only a passive surveillance (progressive occurrence of monotony), and/or during the post-prandial period and/or during times favourising drowsiness, i.e. between 11 h00 pm and 1 h00 am and between 1 h00 pm and 3 h00 pm, according to the pilot's biological clock. In addition, such phases of drowsiness sometimes occur simultaneously for both pilots.
At present, modern planes are equipped with a “timer” function, which through a diverted use, allows the crews to create an alarm which sounds at a preset time.
However, no function dedicated to one of the pilots' rest in the cockpit exists at the moment within the frame of the rules emitted by public authorities and taking into consideration the operating companies internal procedures.
Thus, there is an interest in proposing an efficient device for managing a pilot's rest period, in order to manage the phases of somnolence in order to improve on the one hand the quality of the rest and on the other hand the pilot's vigilance, whatever the flying phases, mainly during the phases requiring a particular vigilance such as the take-off and approach phases.